I am disgusted with the methods the Virginia Beach Amphitheater, LiveNation, and Ticket Master are using to deceive customers to make an extra buck.

Virginia Beach Amphitheater concerts are advertised on the Virginia Beach Amphitheater webpages on the LiveNation website and their tickets are sold through Ticket Master. I clicked on a link from the Virginia Beach Amphitheater's page on the LiveNation website. The link was highlighted by the offer for "Pre-Sale Concert Tickets and Concert Deals" for Fans of LiveNation. I wanted to see what offers were available for fans of LiveNation as I have received emails for several years now. I selected the link to see what specials were offered.

The next page showed a Kings of Leon Concert picture with buy tickets highlighted. I clicked on the picture to buy tickets to this concert. I was brought to the Kings of Leon Concert page.

The first choice for tickets on the Kings of Leon concert page is "General Tickets with Fast Pass". I chose this option believing I would be purchasing General admission tickets with a fast pass (Although I had no idea what fast pass was but thinking it was part of a deal for fans.).

On the next page I am greeted with the familiar search for tickets option. Under the search for tickets "Full Price Tickets" is shown. I chose to add 4 Full Price tickets at "Any Price". When I submit my request for 4 tickets, the next page shows: "Section: Gen Adm, Price Level 1, and General Admission Ticket, Type: Full Price Ticket". I select to accept this order. I paid for the ticket order on the next page.

After purchasing the tickets, I received the tickets by email. I went to check them for accuracy. When I opened the tickets and began reading, I found printed on these "tickets" is a message that these are NOT concert tickets. They are not general admission tickets. They are not tickets at all.

Instead they are special passes. Basically, they are a voucher to skip the line at a concert and a customer must purchase general admission tickets to go along with these.

There was nothing that was obvious that would have told me that this was not a ticket for the concert.

I emailed the customer service department immediately and asked for assistance. After not hearing anything for two days, I called the customer service number.

When I called the customer service number, I was told by the customer service representative that there was one place on one of the webpages that would give customers a hint that these were not general admission tickets, although everything else a customer sees on the webpages state "General Admission" or "Full Price Tickets". The customer service representative said that the one place a customer can see that these are not general admission concert tickets (Not Tickets All) is under a "see more" option on one of the pages to read the "fine print" and at the very bottom of the fine print, the very last thing, it says is "This is not a concert ticket". No where else did it say this in prominent view of the customer. Yet everywhere else it shows a general admission ticket or full price ticket title.

This is extremely deceptive and I explained this to the customer representative. I asked the representative for a refund because I was not going to use these passes as I thought they were tickets. He said there were no refunds.

The customer service representative forwarded me to a customer service manager who repeated the company's policy that there are no refunds.

In addition, the customer service manager stated that customers must select every link and read everything and it is up to the customer to be sure that they are not being deceived by LiveNation and Ticket Master. She went on the say that the Ticket Master website says "General Admission" Tickets on each page, next to each item the customer sees it, to help Ticket Master have an accurate head count. That is crazy. When completing a head count you count how many people purchased the items. This is completed through a database of purchasers, not through the text a customer reads on the website. What is stated on a website is for customers to view.

This is a very deceptive practice and The Virgina Beach Amphitheater, Live Nation, and Ticket Master are making money off of knowingly deceiving customers. Further, the fact that they know customers are being deceived and enacting a no refund policy is really criminal as it is deceptive and for customers it could mean a loss of funds.

Was this review helpful?YesNo

Replies

TicketMaster Offers No Help

Posted by hv on 01/31/2010

In August 19, 2009 I took my family to the Paul McCartney concert in Dallas, a long awaited event that my children (9 and 12 years-old) were very excited to be attending. I purchased 4 floor tickets. As was to be expected, it was very crowded. My 9 year old son had been the most excited of all to get to see Paul play. A lot of people brought their kids to the concert.
However, the pleasure was short lived. A couple seated behind us, drinking the whole time, took all the pleasure out of the event. When Paul started to play all the other kids were standing on their seats in order to see. My 9 year old son, who is only about 3-3/4 ft. tall, asked my permission to stand on his seat, and I let him. The woman behind us complained even though she was sitting directly behind me and to the left of my son. She and her boyfriend complained that they would get security. I took it upon myself to talk to security as well and was told it was okay for him to stand on his seat.
After a few minutes the woman went to get another beer and returned, followed by security. Without a word to me, security abruptly pointed to my son and made him sit down. He started crying, curled up in his seat and eventually cried himself to sleep. He missed the entire concert because of a very disagreeable drunk. This event security person took it upon himself to make my son sit down even though hundreds of kids remained standing on their seats throughout the performance and no security person approached them. I could not explain to my son why all the other kids were allowed to get up on their seats but not him. I was very uncomfortable having this couple directly behind me holding beer bottles in their hands for the remainder of the concert since they had been very hostile toward us from the moment they sat down.
The ‘event security’ had a communication problem since they did not even agree among themselves whether children should be allowed to stand on their seats. There was no general communication that controlled this situation and it was not applied equally throughout the audience. My point is, security handled this incorrectly, they should first have gotten my attention before abruptly correcting my son. Next, the correction should have been equally applied to all. We were singled out among many to be the exception to the rule and it was my whole family that suffered. What was to have been a high point in our vacation was turned into a disaster.
Now I'm requesting Ticketmaster to reimburse me for the price of only me and my son’s tickets ($390.10). I feel it is only fair that I pay for my other son’s and wife’s tickets. I feel that TicketMaster, as the vendor providing the service should be responsible for this decision. I expect a contractor to be accountable for all subcontractors who render the services purchased. We were denied the right to enjoy the service provided even though others doing exactly the same thing were allowed to continue and enjoy the concert.
American Express has contacted TicketMaster several times and they have refused to give me a refund. They have even refused to a 3 way conference call with American Express and me, in order to resolve this issue.
Also, American Express does NOT protect their customers when they don’t receive the services their customers pay for. I contacted their legal department on this issue, and I was basically told that they will not interfere with TicketMaster’s decision.
Let this be a warning to those people that charge their concert tickets on American Express.
I should have charged the tickets on Visa, because I know they will protect their customers.

Was this review helpful?YesNo

Replies

Horrible Customer Service and Bad Policy

Posted on 10/28/2014

Rating: 1/51

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI -- I called to ask about a refund and was promptly hung up on when I asked for a supervisor. I call back and get supervisor Josue CYS844, he is just as rude as the first associate, I believe his name is Julio. They will not refund any orders I placed, even though I have been a loyal customer for years and placed tons of orders. This particular show was purchased 72 hours ago and is not until December. They basically laughed at me and say they do not own the tickets, even though on my CC statement it says Ticketmaster right by the charge. This is not only a matter of them being rude, but also a matter of them standing behind a bad policy to take advantage of their customers.

I want a personal apology and I want my refund as requested.

Was this review helpful?YesNo

Replies

Issued Tickets Not Seats Purchased

Posted by Peter on 06/06/2013

Rating: 2/51

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND -- I purchased my tickets on line and received them the same way. I had never been in this concert hall (Myerhoff) before. The location of the seats (alphanumeric) on the issued tickets was unclear. The on-line illustration of the location of the seats to be selected was nothing like the actual layout of the hall. The seats were to be mid way back on the main floor to the left of the left hand aisle. I found we were seated to the right of the left hand aisle further back in the balcony. This was unsatisfactory. I could not rectify the problem at the time of the concert. The upset over this situation impaired my enjoyment of the concert.

Was this review helpful?YesNo

Replies

When you are a monopoly, you don't have to care about service

Posted by goduke on 08/28/2010

So I'm travelling in the next few weeks, and decided to grab a game to watch one of my favorite teams. Since Ticketmaster is the only game in town, had to deal with the service fees and got a ticket. Came in the mail today, and they sent me the wrong tickets (they sent me an $8 ticket when I bought a $50 ticket).

So I called Ticketmaster customer service. It gave me the option to take the customer service survey after the call, so I took them up on it, and was told just to hang on after the call ended.

After about 5 minutes on hold, the on hold music stopped, I received the little musical tone letting me know that I was being routed to an agent, and I hit dead air. I said "hello" several times, sat for a few seconds, said "hello" a few more times, sat there, and after about 90 seconds, an agent came on and said "hello." A bit annoyed by this time, I explained that I had purchased a seat in section 218, row x, seat y, and received a ticket in section 254, row x, seat y. Her response? "OK." I said, "You guys sent me the wrong tickets." Her response, "oh." Said I, "I need you to get me the correct tickets." Her response, "oh, OK."

At each point when I stated a piece of information she said, "huh, what was that." I'm not sure if she was distracted, or if we had a bad phone connection, or if she was operating from home on VoIP (lots of places do that), but it was just not a good experience. She never once said "I'm really sorry we sent you the wrong tickets." And then when I asked if they can send me a replacement ticket (event isn't for 3 weeks), she said they could only send the email ticket. Finally, when the call was done and I was going to be able to take the survey, she refused to end the call by hanging up so that the survey would be triggered. I finally hung up.

While I applaud Ticketmaster for keeping their customer service within the US, it would seem that they feel being a monopoly means they really don't have to worry about the customer experience. And the sad fact is that they are right. If I want to buy concert tickets I have to use Ticketmaster (or their counterpart Live Nation).

Was this review helpful?YesNo

Replies

Entertainment Rewards Rip Off

Posted by Helix on 01/18/2009

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS -- I am a regular customer of Ticketmaster. Unfortunately I ended up filling out a survey concerning Entertainment Rewards after purchasing a ticket from Ticketmaster.

I have been receiving a 9$ charge to my credit card each month and I learned that it was from Entertainment Rewards. Other than filling out a survey through Ticketmaster, I have never heard of or used Entertainment Rewards. I didn't even know I had a password to login to Entertainment Rewards. Once I learned that it was a rip off I immediately canceled my account which I did not know existed.

I have been charged 9$ every month starting from June 08. From my point of view this reduces Ticketmaster's accountability. I do not know where Entertainment received my credit card information from. I am extremely disappointed.

Was this review helpful?YesNo

Replies

Purchasing Tickets Online

Posted on 03/24/2001

CALIFORNIA -- I am an avid concert goer. I purchase tickets for up to 20 events a year. I am also a computer owner with an internet account. So, when Ticketmaster opened their online ticket service, I was excited about the possibility of not having to fight the phone lines or wait in line to purchase my tickets, I could do it all from my home. Well, that was until two weeks ago when I attempted to purchase tickets through their internet presale arrangement.

I had had problems trying to get tickets through their online service before. The usual things, server too busy, cannot process order, etc. But, this time, I actually got to the page where the tickets have been reserved and you have 5 minutes, or so the page says, to complete the transaction. The problem is, I was never able to complete the transaction. Their online servers lost my connection, so I lost my tickets. This happened twice within 10 minutes of each other. The fact that I was on a computer that had a T1 line (this is a very very fast internet connnection, much faster than DSL), did not seem to make any difference.

After my experience, I contacted Ticketmaster, to see if I could get some assistance. After being shuffled back and forth from phone centers in Orlando and California, and being put on hold for over an hour and a half, I finally got in touch with a Customer Service Manager. I explained what had happened and her answer was, "Sorry, there is nothing we can do."

So, I took the matter all the way to the CEO. He never returned my call.

Needless to say, I would warn anyone and everyone from Ticketmaster's Online service if your intent is to get good seating for a show that you expect to sell out quickly, or if you have a internet connection speed that is lower than DSL. I would also warn you from trying to get any decent customer service from them if you have any problems. They are completely inept from top to bottom. It is no wonder that their stock price is in the pits.

Was this review helpful?YesNo

Replies

Won't help find owner of lost tickets

Posted by kenoqueen on 04/14/2011

I found some concerts tickets today and was hoping to re-unite them with their owner. I contacted Ticketmaster by phone and explained the situation and they said they were unable to help me. Now we all know that a simple search of the barcode on the ticket would have revealed the owner's information. I did not even want the information, they could have contacted them and given them my phone number.

Their only suggestion was to mail them the tickets! Right............

Was this review helpful?YesNo

Replies

Cancelled Concert

Posted by urbandrummer on 11/24/2007

PHOENIX, ARIZONA -- Just an FYI! When you purchase tickets from Ticketmaster.com and the entertainer has to cancel the concert, the consumer takes a $6.10 loss from their purchase and it is not refunded with the ticket costs. Reason: They delivered the ticket! If you were to multiply that by each order, say 20,000... that would mean that Ticketmaster still gets $122,000.00 of non-refunded fees for those orders! I think that is outrageous!

The tickets are delivered via automated email and printed from my computer and printer. I think the entertainer should eat the processing fees!